


judgement call

by youcouldmakealife



Series: unsportsmanlike conduct [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 06:45:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6555808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That’s probably the reason he’s so shaken. Davies made a good first impression, and Hank’s opinion of him was cemented as the years went by: patient, considerate, a good leader. Played like a gentleman. Hank considers himself a good judge of character, so it came as a surprise.</p>
<p>Well, that was certainly one of the reasons, at least.</p>
            </blockquote>





	judgement call

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings at the end:

Hank doesn't remember the first time he shared the ice with Jordan Davies. That’s probably for the best. Hank's rookie year as a referee was a year before Davies' rookie year as a player, and rookies are sometimes tiny, sometimes temperamental, always at least a year away from playing a disciplined game. Hank's sure Davies was no exception, no matter how disciplined he plays now.

They’ve obviously shared the ice many times in the intervening years, but the first time Hank remembers was when Davies was twenty-five, had been on the Red Wings a year and already had an A, one he'd swap for the C a year following that. The Red Wings captain at the time had landed himself in the box during a scrum, and it was Davies that skated over to plead his case. What Hank remembers, more than anything, is that while the Avalanche captain yelled at him for the extra two the Avs were going to get, interrupted Hank multiple times when he tried to explain the reasoning, Davies waited his turn, and he didn't raise his voice, not once.

That’s probably the reason he’s so shaken. Davies made a good first impression, and Hank’s opinion of him was cemented as the years went by: patient, considerate, a good leader. Played like a gentleman. Hank considers himself a good judge of character, so it came as a surprise.

Well, that was certainly one of the reasons, at least.

*

Rivalry games make Hank tired. 

He gets why fans like them, he does. He was a hockey fan before he was a referee, contrary to the belief of players who yell about him hating the game. They’re still tiresome, thankless work, and Hank and the three other officials have spent about as much time breaking players up between plays as actually officiating said plays.

“How much do the fucking Penguins pay you?” spits Fortune. The Penguins have had a grand total of one less penalty than the Flyers, so Hank hopes whatever the Penguins are paying him isn’t much, or they’re not getting their money’s worth.

“Fucking geezer,” McMorrow says, ten minutes later, “your vision’s slipping, you can’t even see what a dirty play is.” Hank is at least 90% certain McMorrow is older than him. It didn’t seem to slow him down any when he was chasing down Fortune’s numbers, catching him with his head down at the boards.

Hank blinks. “Charming as you are,” he says. “It’s still a major.”

“He fucking dove,” McMorrow argues.

Fortune didn’t get up right away. Went to the bench slow, and then walked right down the tunnel with a trainer following him. There’s differences of opinion on borderline plays, and then there’s what that was. McMorrow will be lucky if he doesn’t get suspended. Targeting the head isn’t exactly appreciated by Player Safety, and Fortune’s a first liner, so they’re likely to pursue it, especially if Fortune doesn’t come back tonight.

Hank puts a hand on McMorrow’s shoulder, prepares to skate him over to the box, since McMorrow doesn’t seem interested in going there himself. McMorrow tugs his arm out of Hank’s grip, but finally goes, at least. The box is not empty. McMorrow has friends to join and glower at Hank with. Hank’s tired. Hank would like this game to hurry up and finish so he can go back to his hotel room and have a beer. Maybe two beers. This is a two beer game.

The Penguins crowd does not appreciate the announcement of the five minute major. Hank knows this, because they boo loud enough Hank can barely hear himself when he whistles a stoppage on a Pasternak save off the face-off. The Flyers don’t hear it either, or pretend not to, keep digging for the puck under Pasternak’s pads, put the puck in the net by pushing the goalie in the net too.

Hank feels like he really shouldn’t need to do this, but he emphatically waves off the goal, then goes to the timekeeper to make sure the clock didn’t keep ticking after the whistle. The Penguins fans decide the lull in the action is a good time to start a 'ref you suck' chant.

Hank thinks the Penguins might stop paying him now. Shame. He could use the help with his car payments.

*

Hank drinks his two allotted beers after the game, looks at his schedule for the month, feels despair. He must have pissed someone off somewhere, because practically every second game he’s going to spend more time playing peacekeeper and public enemy one than official. The other thing about rivalry games is that no matter how careful you are, how even handed you try to be, people are going to hate your decisions, and they’re going to hate you.

It’s not that Hank isn’t used to it, isn’t able to brush it off, but man, they packed a whole lot of hating Hank into this month.

He’s off to Sunrise next, which is a bit of a comfort, especially because the Panthers have no real rivalry with the Capitals. It’ll be a nice balm to his nerves. Maybe it’ll be relaxing. He can get some sun, officiate a sane game, take a deep breath and prepare for the upcoming shitshows.

Hank’s wrong sometimes.

The game in Sunrise isn’t one of those you see the bones of early on, know will turn on a dime if you aren’t careful. It starts fine. The turning point is probably when Emile calls a tripping that ends up converting, though it doesn’t seem like it at the time. Hank doesn’t agree with the call, and Emile doesn’t either, once they’re in the stew room between periods. It was a pretty obvious dive by Lourdes, who was good to go ten seconds later, assisted on the power play goal. “Fucking cheat,” Emile says, disgusted, once he’s watched the replay, and he goes too far the other way next period, calls three on Florida, one personally on Lourdes. It’s not like they’re nothing calls, he’s not fabricating them, but they’re the definition of borderline, and Washington, always excellent on the power play, ties and then pulls ahead on the strength of that.

Hank calls a bullshit penalty on the Capitals himself, isn’t particularly proud of it — yes, it was a hook by the definition of the act; yes, it’s also the kind of hook that happens at least ten times a game — but game management is important, and the scattered crowd of Sunrise is currently surly with good reason. This is going to turn into the sort of game where the Panthers figure if they’re going to be called for everything, they’re going to damn well _deserve_ it, and the Panthers aren’t a clean team at the best of times. Hank doesn’t particularly want someone to get injured because Emile’s embarrassed that Lourdes tricked an undeserved power play out of him, and Florida’s got the ‘fuck it, if we’re not going to win we’re going to make their win cost them’ attitude as the third continues.

Before the game is through there’s a fist fight between Lourdes and Dineen, an ugly goal from Washington, three penalties, half a dozen borderline hits, and a lot of fraying of Hank’s nerves.

This was supposed to be the easy game. This was supposed to be Hank’s respite. All he’s got to look forward to is the ugly son of a bitch that’s a game between the Red Wings and the Scouts. The only comfort is that as ugly as it might get, those teams have two levelheaded captains, and Hank won’t have to deal with the kind of bullshit he does when Lourdes is trying to pretend he doesn’t lead the charge on the Panthers’ dirty play.

Hank’s wrong a _lot_ , apparently.

*  
The Red Wings-Scouts game unfurls mostly as expected from the start. It’s an ugly game from the drop of the puck, and it only gets uglier as time goes on. The Red Wings and the Scouts rivalry may not have the immediacy of the Penguins and Flyers one, but Hank knew that there was baggage, going in. Hank’s really starting to wonder who has it in for him. Happy New Year, McGregor, have a bunch of rivalry games strung together, see how well you hold up. 

It doesn’t help that he’s had a different partner in each of them, and they’ve all been pretty green. Neil screws up a few calls in the first. Hank knows he’s going to be the first guy to call himself on it between periods, after he’s had time to analyze them, watch the replays on the jumbotron, the small TV in the stew room the refs get. He’s not the kind of person who gets defensive, he’ll accept his mistakes and learn from them. Hank respects that. He thinks Neil’s going to be really good once he’s had a few hundred games under his belt. He’s a good guy, and he tries hard.

He’s a good guy, he tries hard, but he misses a crucial call in the first, and it breaks the game wide open. Hank didn’t see Simcoe’s hit on Rossiter from the other side of the rink, but he saw a half dozen replays, and it was dirty, unnecessary, and dangerous. Textbook penalty, grounds for a major, especially since Rossiter left the ice, didn’t come back. Neil generally errs on the side of missing a penalty rather than calling a bullshit one, and Hank gets that, but he saw the replay, and it wasn’t borderline. It should have been called.

The game gets out of their hands, after that, and Hank tries not to blame Neil for that. But it gets uglier, and Hank recognises the simmer of a game about to go very bad. The Scouts are laying on the hits, but they’re carefully playing right on the line of what’s legal, and the first thing Hank can call ends up being on the Red Wings. It’s been close to a period, but Hank knows retaliation when he sees it, and Davies, generally clean, is the one making it. 

Hank gets it. His partner’s injured, and Simcoe’s the one that laid the hit, but Hank’s never had any patience for the bullshit downward spiral teams get into, the excuses they make, ‘he started it so I gave it to him two times worse’. They all have a reason. Simcoe crumples, and Hank gets the whistle in his mouth, his hand up. “Five minutes for boarding,” he says, to Davies, and the disbelieving look Davies gives him is almost funny, it’s so over the top.

“Let’s go,” Hank says, when Davies doesn’t move, surprisingly stubborn. But then, he doesn’t get called much, and a major’s probably generally out of his purview. 

“This is fucking horseshit, McGregor,” Davies spits out as Hank gets a hand on his elbow. “That was an epic dive.”

It might have been a little embellished, but not much, from what Hank saw. Simcoe fell hard, but the hit Davies lay would have knocked him over regardless, and he’d caught him with his head down. He’s lucky he didn’t knock his head into the boards. Davies is usually more restrained than this, both play-style and commentary. He doesn’t kick his heels up at sitting in the box, even when he doesn’t think he deserves to go.

“Do the crime, pay the time,” Hank says mildly. Davies would usually grin at the utter cliche of it, or at least settle down, but instead he sneers in Hank’s direction. He let Hank skate him a few feet, at least, but he tugs his arm away before they’re even halfway to the box.

“You’re supposed to be better than this,” Davies says. “Apparently you’ve got your thumb up your ass and your eyes rolled in the back of your head like every other dickweed who wasn’t good enough to get in the NHL.”

Hank’s heard worse, a lot worse, and generally shrugs it off — he knows he has a reputation for going easier on the guys, and some take advantage of that fact, but most respect him for it. He thought Davies was in the latter group.

“You want extra for abuse of an official?” Hank asks. Neil’s skating up, eyes wary. Play needed to start ten seconds ago.

“Like you have the fucking balls,” Davies says. “You want everyone to like you so bad you’d suck my cock.”

“Ten minute misconduct,” Hank says. “Get back to your bench.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Davies asks, laughing disbelievingly.

“Get back to your bench,” Hank says flatly. “I want you walking down that tunnel in the next five seconds.”

“Or what?” Davies asks. 

That’s a stupid fucking question. 

“Ten and a game,” Hank says. “Get the fuck out of here.”

*

“The hell did Davies _say_ to you?” Neil asks after the second.

“He wouldn’t get off the ice,” Hank says. 

“That’s it?” Neil asks.

“I mean, he was a dick about it,” Hank says. “But that was the measure of it.”

“Huh,” Neil says, gives Hank a look like he thinks Hank is kind of an idiot. He can think that, that’s fine. Hank’s job isn’t to impress anybody.

After Davies leaves the game the Scouts drop the hits and start shooting. Detroit’s lost two D men; injury and the misconduct, and you can see it in their play. It’s a bloodbath, but it’s a bloodbath on the scoreboard and not the ice, and honestly that’s all Hank asks. Hank spends the third watching the puck go in the net, waits for the night to be over.

He’s got a few missed calls when the game’s through. New York and Toronto area codes, so he’s probably getting the twin grilling from Hockey Ops and Player Safety. An email from the Commissioner, politely informing him that a full report will be required, as per 31.9 and 39.5 in the rule book. Hank’s always had to write reports for misconducts, but they’re rote. Hank wasn’t aware that a game misconduct for abuse of an official warranted an email from the Commissioner. Maybe they aren’t. He’s never actually given it out before as anything other than a bench minor when a coach goes too far, and even then, he can count on one hand how many times he’s done that in a decade of officiating. 

Generally the league lets his misconducts stand for themselves, probably skim his report, file it, and move on. But then, generally all they need to do is watch a replay, because most of those Hank’s handed out are based on dangerous hits, a few when the brawling’s gotten out of hand and they need to take some guys off the ice before they kill someone or get killed. This means they’re pissed. He doesn’t know who they’re pissed at, him or Davies, but they’re pissed.

It’s not like the league’s never questioned his calls before. The first time he got a phone call from up high after one ironically involved Davies as well. Took a call from hockey ops less than an hour after he was off the ice, which is generally not a call you want, either as a player or a ref.

“I’ve got Kings management up my ass on this,” Pat told him. Hank liked Pat, most of the time, and got that his job was to sit between a rock and a hard place, but fuck did he make bad calls sometimes. Honorary ref. “I’m not questioning your judgement, but Redmond says he was just chirping and you went down way too—”

“He called Davies a nigger two feet away from me, Pat,” Hank snapped before Pat could play mouthpiece for Redmond any more. “What was I supposed to do, slap him on the wrist? The rule book’s pretty clear that it’s an automatic misconduct.”

Pat was quiet. “I don’t think management knows the context.”

“I doubt he’d tell them,” Hank says. “Sorry boss, I got thrown out because I was being a racist piece of shit, my bad.”

“I’ll talk to them,” Pat said.

“You do that,” Hank said, and since then, they’ve mostly left him alone.

This one’s of his making, though, and a detailed report isn’t optional. They probably wouldn’t be satisfied with bullet notes or a vague paragraph. He gets it — on the one hand it’s a misconduct that could be abused by the officials, and on the other hand, a player misbehaving that badly might need suspending. Hank still doesn’t think it’s necessary to rehash the whole thing to the Commissioner. He’d frankly prefer to leave it on the ice — he’s had plenty of things said to him, some that have been objectively worse. He doesn’t like thinking about why that set him off. Because Davies has always seemed like one of the good guys, sure, but also because it got to him. Because it hit too close.

If the Commissioner finally wants to apply the supposed zero tolerance for homophobic comments, Hank’s all for that, truly he is. But he thinks that should come from a comment to a player, not a ref, that maybe the league should start sticking up for the guys who’ve been facing those comments with frequency since they came out. 

Hank emphatically does not want to be the stand the league makes, and that’s not because he feels like it doesn’t effect him. It does. Of course it does. But he doesn’t want to be in the centre of things. 

He doesn’t need to cut much in the end, just the ‘you’d suck my cock’ comment. Even without that he has a case for the game misconduct, by the book. Even without the comments, the fact Davies challenged his ruling as much as he did is case enough, technically, though it does look like Hank badly overreacted. That’s fine. He puts the emphasis on the thumb up the ass comments, though they’re the kind of shit he hears on a weekly basis. Figures the league’s not going to pursue supplementary discipline, because, well. They’re the kind of comments that refs hear on a weekly basis. 

Hank really doesn’t much care about the Commissioner’s opinion about him. He doesn’t schedule Hank’s games.

He doesn’t hear back from the Commissioner after he sends his report, but then, he didn’t expect to. They opt not to pursue supplemental discipline, which isn’t surprising, but is still a relief. Hank doesn’t want to become news. He doesn’t want Red Wings fans to think of him as the guy who sidelined their captain during a crucial part of the season. Hank wants it dropped. For those reasons and for others, but. 

Hank doesn’t want to think of those. He’d prefer to let them lie.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings:  
> Use of racial and homophobic slurs. Pervasive language. Verbal abuse.


End file.
